The December 2009 Midwest blizzard was a powerful extratropical cyclone which was of a category which meteorologists refer to as a cyclogenic bomb, a system which shows a drop in central pressure similar to the rapid intensification cycle of a tropical cyclone, more than 1 mbar (approx. 0.03 inHg) per hour for 12 to 24 hours or more. A sustained drop averaging more than 2.5 mbar/h is termed explosive deepening/intensification, and this was the case with this rapidly deepening and intensifying storm as it traversed the Midwest and Ontario and on to Québec, Greenland and vicinity. In many locations wind, snowfall, and precipitation moisture content records dating back to the December 2, 1990 storm, the 1976-1978 period, the 1949 blizzard, or even further back were broken, with barometric pressure records falling as well. Both the central pressure (depth) and rate of change and differential over a given distance (intensity) were remarkable, and both caused hurricane-force winds in places. The storm originated over the south-western United States west of the Rocky Mountains on December 6, 2009, and took a common winter storms track known as the [Oklahoma] Panhandle Track. Rapid to explosive intensification took place over a period of more than 36 hours as the system regrouped over the southern Great Plains, with the central pressure bottoming out at 976 mbar (97.6 kPa or 28.81 inHg) on the morning of December 9 over northern lower Michigan although readings as low as 969 mbar (96.9 kPa or 28.61 inHg) were reported in the region by co-operative observers and others. This central pressure was lower than the storm which sank the Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10, 1975, and equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane. It appears to be the fourth-lowest central pressure measured in the Midwest, behind (and a possible tie of national record for Canada of 940.6 mbar (94 kPa or 27.76 inHg)) in the October 26, 2010 windstorm (October 2010 North American storm complex), reading in southern Minnesota during the November 10, 1998 windstorm and readings down to with the Midwest and North-East blizzard of late January 1978. In advance of the storm, the barometric pressure at many weather stations fell by 3 or more millibars per hour for 18 hours or more. Several locations along the path of the storm reported winds in excess of 100 mph with a 115 mph gust in north-eastern New Mexico. The belated arrival of